BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The COVID-19 situation in Negros Occidental continues to improve as the Department of Health – Western Visayas Center for Health and Development reported yesterday that Negros Occidental is now under minimal risk case classification.
Highly-urbanized Bacolod City risk classification was also downgraded to low risk, the DOH-WV report added.
Both Negros Occidental and Bacolod City have negative two-week growth rate at – 46 and -43, respectively, and a low-risk daily attack rate of 0.70 percent as well as 1.74 percent per 100,000 population, it added.
The Health Care Utilization Rate (HCUR) of Negros Occidental was also reported by DOH-WV at 18.91 percent and 27.31 percent for Bacolod City.
Despite of positive developments, Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson has encouraged local chief executives not to be complacent, as the country is bracing for the entry of COVID-19 variant Omicron, which is described as “highly mutated” compared to other variants.
“COVID is still around so we never let our guards down,” Lacson told local chief executives during the general assembly of United Negros Alliance (UNegA) on December 4 in Bago City, Negros Occidental.
COVID-19 active cases in Negros Occidental have further gone down to 392 as of December 5, as reported by the Provincial Incident Management Team.
Negros Occidental recently topped the three-day National Bakunahan in Western Visayas with 213, 291 persons vaccinated, exceeding its target of 150,000, records from the Regional Vaccination Center of the Department of Health regional office showed.*
